This essay proposes a set of assumptions to explain a set of empirical observations related to past, present, and future broad market behavior. There is no attempt to integrate geopolitical events such as war. The theory is called knife edge economics. It was first published privately to EarthBlog News subscribers in the spring of 2009 and disseminated publicly in late December 2009 via in an introspective look at the future of America. This essay offers an elaboration from that point.

knife edge economics

assumptions:

A collapse occurred in 2008 due to an ever increasing amount of debt which became too large to finance.

The FED is never going to tell the truth. Neither is the Treasury. Neither is the Banking system.

As short term interest rates were raised, the housing market collapsed, ending a multi decade long sting of FED induced serial bubbles which all required ever more debt.

The last bubble, the real estate bubble, was by far the largest bubble. The last remaining bubble is the unpayable debt still called a currency (the US dollar).

The collapse of the real estate bubble caused massive insolvency in the banking system, the government and the population. This set off a chain reaction of derivative failures with losses dwarfing available capital. This required public bailouts and state control of public corporations.

The collapse has already occurred, and all that can be done at this point is to alter the look and feel of the collapse, and affect real wealth and capital allocation as the collapse continues.

The entire global financial system at this point resembles a balloon. As new debt is created in the US, the capital is deployed overseas causing the balloon to expand and all asset prices to rise and the US dollar to fall because US banks are buying foreign assets and selling dollars. As the balloon deflates, capital returns to the US causing a rise in the US dollar and a deflation of all asset prices. The idea that capital returns to America seeking safety is an MSM red herring.

If the FED did not have a printing press available, the entire global financial system would have already completely collapsed amid massive insolvency into a deflationary depression and total system failure.

Since the FED does have a printing press, we have printed more money and increased the already unpayable debt so as to attempt to regain solvency of member banks and affiliated institutions.

Stability is achieved by ensuring low volatility. Low volatility is ensured by active short term market management.

If the volatility as measured by the VIX is low, the knife edge is wide. If the volatility is high, the knife edge narrows.

As the knife edge narrows (as volatility increases), the risk of falling off on one side or another increases.

The two sides of the knife edge are a: a hyperinflationary depression b: a deflationary collapse

If the knife edge thins and collapse occurs, which side of the knife will be determined by how much money is printed (debt is increased).

If the knife edge remains wide (if the volatility remains low) , the collapse can be made to look like an extended period of economic and social decay lasting as long as one or two decades, ending at a point that resembles a collapse, but arriving there without a dislocation.

To the people, it will feel more of less the same. The experience will be high unemployment and a much lower standard of living due to unaffordability or lack of money.

The final outcome is either default or devaluation via inflating the debt away, or changing to a new devalued currency.

The FED, the Treasury and member banks along with Central Banks and affiliated institutions overseas are all working in concert using active management techniques of all kinds as a means to achieve policy objectives.

The primary policy objective is market stability.

The rate of quantitative easing (money printing) determines long term interest rates. Long term interest rates determine whether the FED is in control, or out of control.

The policy is to print enough money to keep long term interest rates low, so the real estate market and banking system can avoid continued collapse and regain solvency.

Artificially suppressing long term interest rate has the effect of depressing the US dollar which has the effect of boosting US share prices and commodity prices.

Using knife edge economics as a predictive tool, the ten year note and the VIX are leading indicators regarding collapse or decay. If the ten year yield remains low, then the FED would be assumed to be in control and the dollar would be free to slowly depreciate. The knife edge as measured by the VIX would remain wide, the FED would have more room to maneuver and commodity, stock and other real asset prices would be expected to move higher.

Another way to look at this would be that policy effect on asset prices is only a reflection of a depreciating dollar against all assets. In other words, assets like stocks may be going up, but only insofar as to reflect the decline in the worth of the dollar, which may or may not be well indicated by the US dollar index. The dollar would depreciate in this way possibly for a decade or more until the unpayable debt was inflated away.

If however there was to be a surge in the 10 yr rate, this would indicate a loss of FED control and would argue for much lower stock and commodity prices, along with a risk of a repeat of October 2008.

The FED solution for a market based surge in the 10 yr interest rate and a volatility increase would be to accelerate QE. If printing money does not reduce the interest rate then knife edge economics would argue the FED is losing control and would risk hyperinflation to regain it with the alternative being insolvency and absolute system failure as was almost experienced in 2008.

Generally speaking, knife edge economics would explain current FED policy as endeavoring to promote stability through any active or passive means necessary. Keep the 10 yr yield low. Manage equity prices for stability and within bands. Allow the dollar to depreciate for an extended period of time, causing asset prices to slowly inflate to regain solvency within the system.

Editors note: EarthBlog News does not provide financial advice. We are proposing an analytic structure to explain market behavior.

The promise of technology prior to the industrial and technological revolutions was a higher standard of living along with more freedom and independence…machines and robots would do all the things humans found repetitive and distasteful. We would all be afforded a utopian life.

Instead, here it is argued that technology is invading our privacy and dehumanizing us. We are becoming hostages to it. It is not improving the quality of our lives, it is turning us into slaves. Rather than more freedom and independence, the robot took someone’s job, the computer made your life amazingly complex, and the cell phone you carry everywhere you go has you on call 24/7.

The realities of the deployment of technology have not met our future expectations.

The reason for every technological development was to make something better, faster, easier, or more affordable. Necessity, the mother of invention. It’s hard to believe any of those motivations could have negative consequences. The wheel made a lot of things easier, faster, and cheaper. Few would argue about the utility of the wheel; that it reduced anyone’s standard of living or that it turned anyone into or a slave. Today, being able to buy goods and have them delivered to our doors with the click of a button seems to benefit everyone. There aren’t many complaints about air conditioning and heating. Certainly, technology has merits. Along with those merits however, are a host of negative consequences.

Technology involves machines and inventions. As technology progresses, machines get ever faster, ever more powerful, ever more demanding. The telephone was invented as a tool to improve communication, and yet less than 200 years after it’s invention, many people in the industrialized world are effectively on call. As the technology has increased, the expected human response time has been reduced. Paradoxically, instead of allowing humans more time, the technology has demanded that humans keep up with it’s pace.

When you look at the receiving end of better, faster, easier and more affordable, you get more complexity, more items to buy and maintain, a decrease in expected response time, and more choices to be made. Although your life may be more comfortable and efficient, it has also become more complex as a result of technology. More is expected of you.

Why do people on vacation today look forward to leaving their watch and cell phone at home? Could it be because the technology is making heavier and heavier demands on humans? Could the increased efficiency on the output side demand increased efficiency on the input side? The technology is demanding that you keep up with it’s pace and it is working at the speed of light.

The issue of course is that human beings are not developing along the moores law curve. Humans are relatively static compared to a transistor density that doubles every two years. Machines are becoming ever more powerful and ever more demanding while the human being being remains relatively constant.

An economist would call all of this increased productivity. As human beings however, is it our goal to have our productivity continuously increased? Is that what the evolution of our species is about? Is ever increased productivity the goal? Is it as simple as that? What IS our goal? Is our goal to be able to produce and consume at an ever faster more efficient and accelerated rate? This essay raises that as a philosophical question. The other philosophical question is, are we being forced into the use of it without a viable alternative?

We want technology to afford us a higher standard of living. Instead it is making more demands on our time and expecting us to keep up with it’s pace. As technology continues to progress, human response times will be expected to keep up, until what? Probably until we are physically integrated into it. Is any of that good? Is that really what we want? Do we have a choice?

As technology moves at an accelerated pace relative to you in your “constant human” state, your productivity becomes ever greater and that’s good, right? Why? Is a chicken that was grown in a cage and fed antibiotics to keep it alive during it’s 56 days to slaughter a better product than a pre technological revolution chicken? Is a chair made on an assembly line better than one made in a craftsman’s shop by hand? This idea revolves around what constitutes “better”. Higher productivity is not necessarily better. Better is not always faster, lower cost, or more efficient.

Because of this fact, is it possible that increased productivity has led to junk? Maybe our landfills are filling up with junk because technology is producing junk instead of products that might have taken far longer to create and been produced far less efficiently, but might have lasted for generations? Maybe technology is forcing us into a disposable society? Maybe technology is leading us to be living, breathing and eating in a sea of disposable junk all produced by robots with great precision and efficiency at the lowest possible cost.

Maybe we are consuming fast food/junk food because of our increased productivity and less free time? Maybe we are consuming junk media; watching junk TV and junk movies because technology is demanding ever higher productivity from us.

What are the consequences of our dependence on technology? 50 years ago, computers were not even a part of our daily lives and today we are utterly dependent on them.The industrialized world today is totally dependent on, and could not function without computers. If computers quit working you couldn’t get home from work because every single moving vehicle would be dead in it’s tracks.

Because of this, it could be argued that technology is making the fabric of our society more fragile and vulnerable. If computers everywhere were to fail, you would have no power, the car wouldn’t start, businesses wouldn’t open, you would not be able to obtain food. Simulations show how quickly our technology based civilization would grind to an immediate halt followed by anarchy if computers all failed. Although the risk of something like this is small, the consequences are so large that the risk of dependence should be considered, and yet it is not. Instead, technology marches on and we as humans are powerless to stop the progression of it. It is arguable, and many people have argued, that as technology becomes ever more powerful relative to a “constant human”, it will relentlessly take over more and more of our lives.

Today as we have autonomous killer drone planes deployed at war, some of these former concerns have already been realized. When autonomous computers are armed with advanced weapons systems, is that good for humanity or bad for humanity? What are the risks of arming computers? Will we eventually trust machines with our existence? Will machines be our rulers and protectors without even realizing it?

What about arming the computers with money? Computers now control banking as well as the stock exchanges. Do these trading computers have the ability to autonomously wipe out our equity before someone can pull the plug?

Technology has allowed us to live in greatly increased comfort, but that comes at a price. As our comfort level has increased, so has the amount of energy used. As technology delivers this greater level of comfort, are we increasingly using the resources of our host planet at an unsustainable rate? Along with higher population rates and longer overall life expectancy, what are the long term consequences of this trend all afforded by technology? Is all the technology worth going to the shore to see oily beaches and dead birds or washed up hypodermic needles? Is living in an air conditioned high rise or driving on the interstate at 70 miles an hour diminishing your interaction and enjoyment with nature and the planet? Are you using more resources than the planet can sustain? If not now, then when?

Would we be better off as a civilization if we didn’t have global media beaming the same thing into all of our living rooms and instead had local and community produced culture? Today our society spends endless hours being entertained by technology. Endless hours of video games. Television. Gadgetry. Is the technology helping or hindering human development? Does a youth spent mesmerized by entertaining video games leave a void that should have been filled by learning and life experience?

What about the arts? Is a guitar hero better than someone who took up a real musical instrument? Is a real athlete more self satisfied and healthy than a couch potato sports fan brought to us via the machines? As the world moves to social networking and instant messages rather than person to person contact, what has happened to human interaction? As we all sit on the couch pressing buttons to communicate with our thousands of “friends”, has technology stripped the meaning out of “friend”? Is a friend really someone who disappears when you press the off button? In the future, will our “friends” be machines…computers mimicking humans? Is the progression of technology enhancing the human experience or diminishing it? Maybe it all depends on how the technology is applied, but how are we choosing to apply it?

Technology was supposed to make everything easier, but it wasn’t supposed to strip humans of their dignity and privacy. As we are now set to have our bodies radiated and examined to get on an airplane so we can more efficiently and quickly get from point a to point b, one might ask if communities would have more character if there were no airplanes, nationwide mall chains and ever fewer large monolithic retailers? One might wonder if all of those security cameras would be necessary if the technology to produce them did not exist.

Computers have made it possible and probable that there is no such thing as privacy in any form of electronic communication, including the digital telephone. If desired, a person’s every movement can be tracked. The entire world can look into your backyard on a computer. Do we need that? Do we have a choice?

Is the fact that the technology exists going to ultimately lead to evil uses of it? No one ever really wants to talk about traits repeatedly demonstrated in the human species like self importance, ascendancy, irrational belief. What about hostility towards our own species, paranoia, lust for power and control, greed, domination, self extermination, genocide, intentional destruction, depletion or misuse of resources? That is the history of the human species.

We now have global gangs of hedge funds and banks who using fiat currency and 99% leverage can launch speculative attacks against entire countries. This sort of economic warfare was not possible without the computers and technology. It arguably provides another example of human development of a technology, then misuse of it.

Is it possible that technology itself isn’t the problem and that we as a species are simply incapable of handling the progression of it due to our shortcomings?

We have harnessed the power of the atom to make nuclear weapons. The question that needs to be asked is, has mankind benefited in any way from nuclear weapons? There are a long list of hazards associated with this technology. As weapons move along the technology curve with ever improving price vs performance, nuclear weapons technology proliferates and it becomes more and more affordable to acquire these weapons. Is that benefiting the human species? As political regimes and authority to use the weapons may come and go, the weapons remain. In this regard is technology a Sword of Damocles in wait of a world leader insane enough to use them? Because of the relentless progression of technology, does it become a countdown timer to extinction when at some point in the future the power of an atomic bomb can be held in your hand?

Our human leaders have embraced an ideology of pre emptive wars using technology to preserve the peace. Innocent people’s lives have become “collateral damage”. People are being killed from the air conditioned comfort of a command and control center. As the weapons move along the technology curve; as they become ever more powerful, ever more cost effective and ever more ubiquitous, how is it possible to believe that they won’t be used again with even more deadly consequences?

Studies will consistently show us a correlation with high technology, stress and a negative correlation with standard of living. Ten percent of the high tech US population take anti-depressant drugs. The society has a higher self inflicted death rate than a tribe living in the woods without any technology where antidepressants and suicide are unheard of. Is technology necessitating technology to cope with technology and doing a poor job at it?

Scientists are now modifying the plant, animal and human genome, the design of life itself. The food supply is being bio engineered and released into the wild with entirely unknown and almost certainly catastrophic consequences. Is this how technology is improving our lives or is it putting humanity and the planet at risk of technological development that outpaces the human maturity to handle it?

Virtually every fish on the planet is now contaminated with mercury. In some places even the rain is toxic. There are residuals of pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals in our drinking water and ground water. We are producing annually billions of pounds of toxic pesticides, poisons, herbicides and man made toxic chemicals. All this waste is being released into the environment at an unsustainable rate of clearance. There was no promise of technology that it would pollute the planet, that was a side effect.

Ever larger machines are being developed to extract, transport and store toxic cargo’s. Safety precautions are always taken, but the error rate is not zero, so accidents and releases happen. As the machines become ever larger and more powerful, the number of accidents goes down, but when one happens it can be nearly catastrophic for the planet, the local inhabitants and ecosystem. No one told us of these ever increasing risks of technology. What happens when a satellite filled with plutonium crashes to the earth or vaporizes in the atmosphere?

Some would argue the benefits of technology have outweighed its negative consequences. Here it is has been argued that the consequences of the development and use of it has outweighed the good. Furthermore because of our human failings, we have as a species failed at the proper application and use of it.

We as human beings are not increasing our wisdom and maturity regarding how to use the technology as fast as the technology itself is progressing.

As a result, humans aren’t using technology, the technology is using humans. The rise of the machines will guarantee the eventual termination of the species by either poisoning the planet beyond it’s ability to host us, poisoning it’s inhabitants, or destroying ourselves. Possibly all three.

A non defective genome would not destroy itself. If it did, it would be a defective genome. The machines are just the tool, or not? Is it possible that the rate of increase of the rise of the machines relative to the constant human represent an exploit of a weakness in the human genome? Are we being attacked by ourselves?

Whatever the case may be, whether these arguments are all valid or not, a case is made here for debate and for an objective look at both the benefits and the drawbacks of technology and it’s progression.

Filed under: Philosophy, technology, thought experiments

100 Percent of Fish in U.S. Streams Found Contaminated with MercuryAddress

Editors Note: The Federal Reserve (the FED) is the third central bank of the United States. The first central bank of the United States charter was not renewed, causing the war of 1812. The second central bank of the United States charter was revoked by Andrew Jackson via executive order. Shortly thereafter he became the first sitting president to have an assassination attempt on his life. He survived two attempts.

Please take the time to read about a criminal syndicate masquerading as our saviors while they rob us of our freedom, wealth and prosperity in a calculated, systematic way, meticulously planned over hundreds of years. The FED reports to another private corporation, the BIS. They control the money. They bought the press. These satanic vultures seeing themselves as gods on earth and us as cockroaches or donkeys, control the agenda which is to ultimately control the world via control of the money. None of us are going to like it. They don’t care.

In this essay I have liberally used their own quotes. In this way, you don’t have to believe what this author says. Instead, they will tell you themselves.

“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen….At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.” — New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, 1922

The Federal Reserve (the FED) was chartered by the US Congress in 1913 to issue currency on behalf of the US Treasury via the Federal Reserve Act.

We do know a few things about the Federal Reserve. Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) and Paul Moritz Warburg (August 10, 1868 – January 24, 1932) were both instrumental in it’s creation.

Institute for Historical Review
The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, by Ron Chernow. New York: Random House, 1993. Hardcover. 820 pages. Photographs. Bibliography. Reference notes. Index.
Reviewed by John Weir
In November 1910, [Senator] Aldrich [of Rhode Island], Paul [Warburg], and four other experts sneaked off to discuss bank reform at a secret hideaway on Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast. With Democrats now in control of Congress and Progressives railing against Wall Street, the bankers had to travel incognito, lest they be accused of hatching a cabal. As part of the elaborate charade, the conference participants pretended to be sportsmen, outfitting themselves as duck hunters. What Chernow does not adequately explain is why such secrecy was necessary if a central bank was really such a great idea. We are told, in effect, that Warburg and others hatched a cabal to avoid being accused of hatching a cabal. Because it was the product of a furtive conclave, and secrecy still surrounds many central bank decision-making activities, it is hardly surprising that there are so many dark suspicions and “banking conspiracy” theories involving the Federal Reserve Bank. According to Chernow, Paul Warburg was the only person in America who understood how a central bank works. In 1912 and 1913, he drew up the basic plan for the Federal Reserve banking system, and he drafted the Federal Reserve Act. In December 1913 President Wilson signed the Act establishing the new central bank. If anyone can be called the father of the Federal Reserve Bank, the New York Times has rightly noted, it is Paul Warburg. The new central bank’s board of governors — which for several years included Paul Warburg — became top-heavy with political appointees whose policy of loose credit set the stage for the Great Depression. America’s economic collapse of the 1930s can be traced to the Federal Reserve’s operation by incompetents and self-serving hacks.Address

According to the current FED board of governors:

“It [the FED] is not owned by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.”

Woodrow Wilson was early in his first term as president in 1913. His pen signed the Federal Reserve act into law. He later said remorsefully in “The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People: ”

However it has come about, it is more important still that the control of credit also has become dangerously centralized. It is the mere truth to say that the financial resources of the country are not at the command of those who do not submit to the direction and domination of small groups of capitalists who wish to keep the economic development of the country under their own eye and guidance. The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men.This money trust, or, as it should be more properly called, this credit trust, of which Congress has begun an investigation, is no myth; it is no imaginary thing. It is not an ordinary trust like another. It doesn’t do business every day. It does business only when there is occasion to do business. You can sometimes do something large when it isn’t watching, but when it is watching, you can’t do much. And I have seen men squeezed by it; I have seen men who, as they themselves expressed it, were put “out of business by Wall Street,” because Wall Street found them inconvenient and didn’t want their competition.

So what IS the truth? You are supposed to believe (according to the FED’s Board of Governor’s) that the most powerful corporation in the world isn’t owned by anyone. Because of this fact, it tells us that this institution called the Federal Reserve is so powerful they won’t even bother to waste any time to create a plausible cover story. Some would call that obscene. It’s obvious when you look into the matter, they don’t even care what you think.

“By this means [printing money] government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.”- John Maynard Keynes (the father of ‘Keynesian Economics’ which our nation now endures) in his book “THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE” (1920).

The Federal Reserve is a private corporation. As such, there is no reporting requirement as there are with public corporations. A corporation by definition has shareholders. The FED has shareholders, we just don’t know who they are because as they have pointed out…they don’t have to say.

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.” Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” Benjamin Disraeli 1844

“Three hundred men, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European continent, and they elect their successors from their entourage.” Walter Rathenau WIENER FREIE PRESSE, December 24, 1912

“Fifty men have run America, and that’s a high figure.” Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, in the July 26th, l936 issue of The New York Times.

The current FED chairman, Ben Bernanke, isn’t the owner of the FED. He’s an employee. Who are his bosses? We have no idea. Well, we have an idea, but we have no proof. Following the money and the family trees gives us an idea.

Maybe some would argue, why should they be required to say?

Isn’t anyone curious?

The FED, in charge of creating the US currency, is arguably the most powerful institution of any kind on this planet. Decisions made by the FED affect the lives of people not just in the US, but everywhere in the world. The FED by virtue of it’s policies and because it effectively has an unlimited bank account, makes decisions that affect standards of living and capital allocation spanning the globe. In 2008, we watched them decide in closed door Sunday afternoon “emergency” meetings who survives and who doesn’t. We don’t know who was there, we don’t know what was said, the only thing we know is who survived and who didn’t.

So why isn’t this topic ever discussed? Here we have a situation where the most powerful people in the world (the shareholders of the Federal Reserve) remain completely anonymous.

“We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent.” James (son of Paul) Warburg quotes ( Banker, Shareholder, Founder, US Federal Reserve, Founder Council on Foreign Relations 1896-1969 ) while speaking before the United States Senate, February 17, 1950

“Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government – a bureaucratic elite.” Senator William Jenner, 1954

The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.” Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (Macmillan Company, 1966,) Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University

“The New World Order cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change it’s perceptions.” — Henry Kissinger, World Affairs Council Press Conference, Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel , April 19th 1994

“The New World Order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down … but an end run on national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.” — Richard Gardner – Council on Foreign Relations Journal, April 1974, Page 558

Yes, there have been studies done and there has been a lot of speculation and conjecture as to who the shareholders actually are, but no one knows for sure. Put it this way, anyone who does know, isn’t saying. Deconstructing all the paper entities and their manifestations, who are the people? What do they stand for? Why don’t we know?

“While boasting of our noble deeds we’re careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery. – Horace Greeley Editor, New York Tribune

The people behind the curtain, the people who are making the decisions and issuing orders that shape the daily lives of every single American remain completely anonymous. How can this be?

These are the most powerful people on the planet. Don’t we deserve to know? It seems unfathomable that we don’t, or that no one has even asked on the people’s behalf.

“The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it’s profits or so dependent on it’s favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.” — Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863

So why is it that there has never in modern history been a member of the US congress who has asked publicly who the anonymous people are who control our lives via a printing press and an unlimited bank account? Are they afraid they might lose their job? Or worse?

“We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it”. – Congressman Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency (Louis T. McFadden was assassinated)

“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.” President James A. Garfield – 20th President of the United States 1881: two weeks before he was assassinated

“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down

Furthermore, the FED is not subject to an audit and they claim that doing so would somehow limit their ability to do their job. They claim that if the public knew who their mysterious international wire transfers in 2008 of US taxpayer money were distributed to it would “undermine confidence in the financial system”. I’m sure it would. The FED is the only financial entity in the world which claims immunity from an audit and gets away with it.

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance.” – James Madison

Their job, by the way, is to “maintain price stability”. Since their charter in 1913, the US dollar has lost approximately 95 percent of it’s value. Given a primary mission of maintaining price stability, history now shows an unequivocal, colossal failure of their primary stated mission.

Summarizing, we have an entity which:

is a private corporation created in absolute secrecy and owned by anonymous shareholders

has never been audited and claims immunity

has demonstrated a colossal failure of their primary mission

affects the daily lives and standard of living of every single American

have stated publicly that their last duty is to tell the public the truth

has presided over the absolute destruction of the middle class in America and the confiscation of their wealth

Am I the only person in America who thinks we deserve some answers? Why are our politicians so timid and fearful of the FED? Does it bother anyone else to listen to our self important bought and paid for buffoons we call congressmen compete with each other to see who can heap the most praise on an institution that has completely failed at it’s primary mission and bankrupted the people in the process?

“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” – Senator Dick Durbin 2009

Furthermore, in 2008 we were told that the FED and their affiliate banks were “too big to fail” and thus, their margin calls from speculation should be met by the people. If our lifespans were longer, we would recognize that as a trick which has already been used in the past to consolidate power and transfer wealth from the people, to themselves. When they win, they keep the profits. When they lose, you pay. This guarantees that ultimately, the FED and their global cabal [the syndicate Elders] will have all the money.

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves” – Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States (1829–1837).

Could it possibly be that the FED along with their anonymous owners are the ones really in charge? It looks that way to me. After you have studied history, it isn’t much of a stretch.

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws” – Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812)

I will close with a quote from Thomas Jefferson. Follow the money. Jefferson’s dark prognostication is coming to be fully realized here in 2010.

‘I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the bankswill deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered..’ – – Thomas Jefferson – Third President of the United States and primary architect of the US Constitution

organized crime definition – legal – n
A widespread group of professional criminals who rely on illegal activities as a way of life and whose activities are coordinated and controlled through some form of centralized syndicate.

The Federal Reserve Is A PRIVATELY OWNED Corporation
By Thomas D. SchaufAddress

Paupers In The Land Our Forefathers Conquered
A long time ago, in an America now far, far away, the majority of the American people owned the land that they live on. The term “my land” actually meant something back then. But today that has fundamentally changed. Now the majority of the American people owe on the land that they live on. In fact, most of them owe big money to the giant corporate banking interests that control the mortgage industry. So how did the American people come to be debtors and paupers in the land that our forefathers conquered?Address

The Federal Reserve Explains… The Federal Reserve In One Easy, Retard-Accessible Video
ZeroHedgeAddress

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: Federal Reserve System is Corrupt and Undermines Democracy
Joseph Stiglitz – former head economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a nobel-prize winner – said yesterday that the very structure of the Federal Reserve system is so fraught with conflicts that it is “corrupt” and undermines democracy.
Stiglitz said:
If we [i.e. the IMF] had seen a governance structure that corresponds to our Federal Reserve system, we would have been yelling and screaming and saying that country does not deserve any assistance, this is a corrupt governing structure.Address

In Deception and Abuse at the Fed, Robert Auerbach, a former banking committee investigator, recounts major instances of Fed mismanagement and abuse of power that were exposed by Rep. Gonzalez, including:
* Blocking Congress and the public from holding powerful Fed officials accountable by falsely declaring–for 17 years–it had no transcripts of its meetings;
* Manipulating the stock and bond markets in 1994 under cover of a preemptive strike against inflation;
* Allowing 5.5 billion to be sent to Saddam Hussein from a small Atlanta branch of a foreign bank–the result of faulty bank examination practices by the Fed;
* Stonewalling Congressional investigations and misleading the Washington Post about the 6,300 found on the Watergate burglars.address

Nelson W. Aldrich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1911. Because of his impact on national politics and central position on the pivotal Senate Finance Committee, he was referred to by the press and public alike as the “General Manager of the Nation”, dominating all tariff and monetary policies in the first decade of the 20th century. In a career that spanned three decades, Aldrich helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition. He rebuilt the American financial system along Progressive lines through the institution of the federal income tax amendment and the Federal Reserve System. He claimed that this would lead to greater efficiency. Aldrich became wealthy with investments in street railroads, sugar, rubber and banking. His son Richard Steere Aldrich became a U.S. Representative, and his daughter, Abby, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of John D. Rockefeller. Her son, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, served as Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford.Address

David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller, Sr. (born June 12, 1915) is an American and the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family. He is the youngest and only surviving child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and the only surviving grandchild of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil. His five deceased siblings are: Abby, John D. III, Nelson, Laurance and Winthrop.Address

“Some even believe we (Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” -David Rockefeller, 2002 Autobiography

Paul Warburg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paul Moritz Warburg (August 10, 1868 – January 24, 1932) was a German-born American banker and early advocate of the U.S. Federal Reserve system.Address

Felix M. Warburg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Felix Moritz Warburg (1871 – 20 September 1937) was a member of the Warburg banking family of Hamburg, Germany. He was a grandson of Moses Marcus Warburg, one of the founders of the bank, M. M. Warburg (in 1798). Felix Warburg was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.. He is known as a leading advocate of a Federal Reserve System for the United States. He married Frieda Schiff, daughter of Jacob H. Schiff and Therese Loeb Schiff, in 1895. They had four sons, Frederick Marcus, Gerald Felix, Paul Felix and Edward Mortimer MorrisAddress

Edmond James de Rothschild
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAddress

James Mayer de Rothschild
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAddress

Salomon Mayer von Rothschild
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Endogamy was an essential part of the Rothschild family’s strategy for future success in order to ensure that control of their businesses remained in family hands. Therefore, in 1824 Salomon Mayer Rothschild’s daughter Betty married her uncle James Mayer de Rothschild, head of the Paris bank.Address

S. G. Warburg & Co.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
S. G. Warburg & Co. was a London-based investment bank. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but it was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation in 1995.Address

68% Think the Fed is a Government Agency
I might be a little bit of a radical. Tonight I stepped out side my apartment and interacted with those around me. Here’s what I found out: 68% (72/106) of the people I spoke with in San Francisco believed that the Federal Reserve Bank is an agency of the government. The specific question I asked was “Is the Federal Reserve a private corporation or an agency of the government?Address

“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits”.- SIR JOSIAH STAMP, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920’s, the second richest man in Britain):

“The modern Banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint and unmint the modern ledger-entry currency”.- MAJOR L .L. B. ANGUS

“We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent.” James (son of Paul) Warburg quotes ( Banker, Shareholder, Founder, US Federal Reserve, Founder Council on Foreign Relations 1896-1969 ) while speaking before the United States Senate, February 17, 1950

“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down

“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond , whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.” Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.” Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952“

Fifty men have run America, and thats a high figure.” Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, in the July 26th, l936 issue of The New York Times.

“The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nationstates involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future.” U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater in his l964 book: With No Apologies.

“Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government – a bureaucratic elite.” Senator William Jenner, 1954“

The case for government by elites is irrefutable.” Senator William Fulbright, Former chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated at a 1963 symposium entitled: The Elite and the Electorate – Is Government by the People Possible?

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” David Rockefeller

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.” Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (Macmillan Company, 1966,) Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University

“The Council on Foreign Relations is “the establishment.” Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also announces and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one-world dictatorship.” Former Congressman John Rarick 1971

“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.” David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.

“People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest …But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan”. – THOMAS A. EDISON

“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States” – Sen. Barry Goldwater

“This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson} signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized….the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.” – Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. , 1913

“We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood as well as in words and money.” Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995)

“For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”- David Rockefeller, “Memoirs” autobiography (2002, Random House publishers), page 405

“Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are the United States government’s institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign swindlers” — Congressional Record 12595-12603 – Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency (12 years) June 10, 1932

“The New World Order cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change it’s perceptions.” — Henry Kissinger, World Affairs Council Press Conference, Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel , April 19th 1994

“The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the International bankers” – Congressman Louis T. McFadden

“You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out.” – Andrew Jackson

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” – Henry Ford

“The New World Order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down … but an end run on national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.” — Richard Gardner – Council on Foreign Relations Journal, April 1974, Page 558

“We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system…. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.” – Robert H. Hamphill, Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank

“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen….At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.” — New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, 1922

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds’ central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.” — “Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time” (Macmillan Company, 1966,) Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University

“The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money.” – St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank Review, Nov. 1975, p.22

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.” – James A. Garfield

“If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer.”John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace 1920, page 240

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frederic Bastiat, The Law

“The Council on Foreign Relations is “the establishment.” Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also announces and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one-world dictatorship.”– Former Congressman John Rarick 1971

“Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” – Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of Exchequer, England

“In the next century, nations, as we know it, will be obsolete. All states will recognize a single global authority.” — Strobe Talbott – Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton. Time Magazine, July 20th, 1992

“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” – Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) Austrian Economist, Author and 1974 Nobel Prize-Winner for Economics

“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.” – John Adams

“The dirty little secret is that both houses of congress are irrelevant. America’s domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. America’s foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund. When the President decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from congress. — Robert Reich – Advisor to President Clinton. USA Today, January 7th, 1999

“Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with a flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back.” – Sir Josiah Stamp, former President, Bank of England

“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interest, combined in one mass; and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks.” – John C. Calhoun, Speech 5/27/1836

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.” – Money: Whence it came, where it went – 1975, p15 John Kenneth Galbraith

“The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalisation, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.
— Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations, February 17, 2006

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency. . . Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose.” – John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace 1920, page 235ff

“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” – George Washington, in letter to J. Bowen, Rhode Island, Jan. 9, 1787

Rising prices of precious metals and other commodities are an indication of a very early stage of an endeavor to move away from paper currencies…What is fascinating is the extent to which gold still holds reign over the financial system as the ultimate source of payment. -Alan Greenspan, 9 Sep 2009

Goldman Sachs Eats Its Young
by Keith Johnson
This should be a lesson to all those young, aggressive, upwardly mobile Wall Street wannabes who think they are somehow going to fast track their way into the stratosphere of high finance. Sorry, kids! There’s no room left at the top, and soon you’re going to see even those old money families tearing each other apart for what’s left of a collapsing fiat money system that has just about run its course.Address

The Financial Oligarchy in the US
21 April 2010
Jesse’s Café Américain
BILL MOYERS: And you say that these this oligarchy consists of six megabanks. What are the six banks?
JAMES KWAK: They are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.
BILL MOYERS: And you write that they control 60 percent of our gross national product?
JAMES KWAK: They have assets equivalent to 60 percent of our gross national product. And to put this in perspective, in the mid-1990s, these six banks or their predecessors, since there have been a lot of mergers, had less than 20 percent. Their assets were less than 20 percent of the gross national product.
BILL MOYERS: And what’s the threat from an oligarchy of this size and scale?
SIMON JOHNSON: They can distort the system, Bill. They can change the rules of the game to favor themselves. And unfortunately, the way it works in modern finance is when the rules favor you, you go out and you take a lot of risk. And you blow up from time to time, because it’s not your problem. When it blows up, it’s the taxpayer and it’s the government that has to sort it out.
BILL MOYERS: So, you’re not kidding when you say it’s an oligarchy?
JAMES KWAK: Exactly.Address

MSNBC Dylan Ratigan video: Federal Reserve is the greatest con and cover-up in US history
April 12, 2010Address

80% ownership of the New York Federal Reserve Bank- by far the most powerful Fed branch- by just eight families, four of which reside in the US. They are the Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans and Kuhn Loebs of New York; the Rothschilds of Paris and London; the Warburgs of Hamburg; the Lazards of Paris; and the Israel Moses Seifs of Rome.address

Editors note: There are aspects of a college education to consider beyond pure economics. For example, a career path offered to a college graduate could be more interesting, stimulating or rewarding than a job which doesn’t require a college degree. Things learned in college could provide useful guidance outside of the career. This article makes certain assumptions. The point of the article is not the assumptions, the point is to attempt a general methodology of evaluating the economic value of a college degree today versus the cost. As the cost of higher education rises ever higher relative to income, clearly there is some limit on cost versus expected earnings that would relegate a college degree to be a poor economic decision. Have we already reached that point? If we have, or when we do, what does that argue for the future of our country?

Americans today are generally aware of the high and ever accelerating cost of a college degree relative to current income. What Americans may not be aware of just how high the cost is.

Lets look at the economics of college.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Costs
Undergraduate student costs for the academic year 2009–2010 at MIT will be about $52,000.Address

So the total cost of a 4 year undergraduate degree is approximately $208,000. The total cost of an advanced degree would be $260,000.

Now lets assume you have either have the $260,000 for an advanced degree at MIT, or you borrow the money paying 7% interest. Let’s also assume a 45 year working career upon graduation.

The future value of $260,000 invested (or borrowed) at 7% interest 45 years hence is $5,460,637. Broken down into equal amounts over 45 years, that is $121,347 per year.

So, using these assumptions (feel free to use your own), the college graduate has to make $121,347 per year, every year of his career after college, to just to pay for the education.

Lets say the non MIT counterpart opted instead of college for a trade job. Lets pick an Auto Mechanic.

Looking through this data, we will assume a modest average annual salary of $40,000 a year for an Auto Mechanic.

Let us note that the MIT Graduate will have to make an average annual salary after graduation of $161,347 to equal the salary of his counterpart, the Auto Mechanic. We will ignore for the purpose of this exercise that the Auto Mechanic started his career 5 years earlier.

So using these assumptions, from an economic perspective, is it a reasonable expectation to earn $161,347 or more upon graduation?

Looking further into the economics of higher learning, today there is data showing as many as one in six college graduates are living at home upon graduation, and unable to find a job. Lets call that 17%. Turning that around, that is an 83% success rate. In considering the economics of a degree, the possibility of not obtaining a job in the chosen career field must be considered.

If your required break even return upon graduation to pay for the costs of college is $121,347, and further if you consider the unemployment possibility, that collectively increases the break even salary requirement to $121,347/.83 or $146,201. So using these assumptions, the collective earnings among all graduates has to be on the order of $150k per year, every year in order to pay for their education.

Note: Footnotes will be added dynamically to this article so please check back if you are interested in the subject.

16 Shocking Facts About The Student Loan Debt Bubble And The Great College Education Scam

About 1 in 6 college graduates earns less than high school graduates
By United States Department of Labor
Earning generally increase with additional educational attainment, but this is not true for every individual. In 1996, about 17 percent of college graduates earned less than the median high school graduate.Address

College graduates move back home
As entry level jobs are harder to find and living independently becomes more expensive, recent graduates are moving back home in greater numbers.
By Gerri Willis, CNN personal finance editor
July 23, 2009
(CNNMoney.com) — They’ve been dubbed boomerang kids and a recent poll by collegegrad.comshows that 80% of 2009 college graduates moved back in with their parents. That’s up quite a bit from recent years.Address

Back to the Nest
By Deborah Weiss
The most recent census figures show that 56 percent of men and 43 percent of women ages 18 to 24 live with one or both parents, and an estimated 65 percent of recent college graduates have moved back in with their parents.Address

Does a College Degree Protect your Career? Unemployment Rate for College Graduates Highest on Record
By Mybudget360Address

College graduates struggle to repay student loans
By Christine Dugas, USA TODAY
Thousands of college graduates are facing a student loan crisis. The job market is shrinking, and the sour economy is preventing employers, parents and relatives from helping those who are behind on payments.Address

No Job And $50,000 In Student Debt. Now What?
Deb Weinstein
02.23.10
I had a plan to pay off my career-changing graduate school debt. Now all I can do is defer payments. Or win the lottery.Address

Major Trends in Employment: College Graduates Now Facing Higher Unemployment, U-6 Rate now at 14.8%, and 4.3 million jobs lost during this Recession.
Mybudget360Address

Job market worsens for recent college graduates
Unemployment among young adults is worse than the U.S. average. Little relief is in sight.
By Don Lee
The unemployment rate dropped last month for men and women, blacks and whites, lifting hopes that the long dry spell in the jobs market may be coming to an end. But for recent college graduates and other young adults, the labor situation didn’t just remain dire — it got worse. For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from 10.2%. And data from the Labor Department show that the unemployment figure for college graduates in that age group was 10.6% in the third quarter — the highest since early 1983 and more than double the rate for older college-educated workers.Address

Americans growing more skeptical of college motives and costs
By Bill Graves, The OregonianAddress

Down and Dirty with Financial Institutions and the Cost of Education
In the heart of every American is the desire to be successful. A person’s conception of success can vary from person to person.Address

University of California campus erupts in riots
03 March, 2010,
Violence breaks out as students at the flagship school of the University of California protest stiff tuition hikes.
Students at the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus took to the streets on Friday night, vandalizing university buildings, burning trash cans and clashing with police in the latest expression of frustration over cuts to the educational budget in California.Address

College Graduates’ Debt Load May Outstrip Ability to Repay
By Janet Lorin
April 26 (Bloomberg) — Students, especially at for-profit universities, are leaving college in the U.S. with a debt load large enough to raise questions about the ability of many to repay loans, a study found.Address

con (kn) Slangtr.v. conned, con·ning, cons
To swindle (a victim) by first winning his or her confidence; dupe.
n.-A swindle.
adj.-Of, relating to, or involving a swindle or fraud: a con artist; a con job.

With relentless enthusiasm, the corporate media extol the virtues of “long term investing” in Wall Street products which range from a simple savings account to impossible to understand concoctions that exploded like financial derivative death stars going supernova in 2008. The public is told in print, on TV and on the radio by various “experts” whose credentials all came from within the industry, “if you save your money and passively invest it for the long term, if you don’t engage in market timing and make regular contributions, you will be rewarded”.

This wisdom is coming from a multi-billion dollar industry where everyone has something in common. None of them make any money unless you invest in their warez. Wall Street and all it’s offshoots have something else in common. They are all parasitic in nature. They don’t make anything, they all rely on money flowing into the system in one way, or another. From a financial publication, to a tv network, to a worldwide lobby of pundits, advisors, consultants, and various other parasites, they all either just skim off the top or take a fee directly.

This essay will challenge the claim of long term investing in Wall Streets myriad of products as a “sure thing” as a patently false, even fraudulent statement…. a con perpetrated by people and institutions that require a continued inflow of money to support their existence.

We will examine the last 97 years, the modern period from when the Federal Reserve Corporation took command of issuing the money on behalf of the US Government.

From 1913 until 2010, the US dollar has lost approximately 95 percent of it’s purchasing power. This is equivalent to a 3% annual return, after taxes. In other words, over this very long term, an investor had to earn 3% after taxes just to break even in terms of maintaining purchasing power. In easy to understand terms, if you could afford to buy a loaf of bread in 1913 and invested the bread money on Wall Street until 2010 earning 3% per annum after taxes, you would still be able to buy a loaf of bread today. Your wealth would not have increased at all, it would have remained constant.

So the investor had to earn an average annualized return over the last 97 years of greater than 3% after taxes, to actually increase their net wealth in terms of purchasing power. We will use that as our baseline. If you could earn 3% after taxes (4.2% before taxes using a 30% tax rate), then you broke even.

Now that we have a baseline standard, lets define “long term”. Over the very long term the only guarantee that can be made is that you’ll be dead. So lets define an “investing lifetime” to mean long term. If you start your career out in your 20’s and retire in your 60’s, that’s a period of 40 years and would be the most generous period.

For practical purposes, people are often operating on a 20 year time line from when they start “investing seriously” meaning that they have accumulated any significant savings to invest. With those assumptions, a reasonable time frame to consider the idea of “long term investing” is 20 to 40 years.

So the question now becomes, can an investor over a period of 20 to 40 years reliably earn a positive return of greater than 4.2% through “long term” investing? This is the point where people will start to play with statistics. The entire industry of wall street will play with the statistics so as to conclude that long term investing is the answer, because they require your money to feed the industry. We are going to take an independent look at that claim.

The researched conclusion is stated in advance, and then backed up by a few examples. The conclusion is as follows. There are periods of time, often long periods of time, as much as 20 years or so where blindly investing in stocks, bonds or some combination thereof would have produced positive returns of greater than the baseline 4.2 percent required to maintain your purchasing power. These are the periods often used for “fun with statistics” that end up in glossy brochures.

On the other hand, there have been periods of up to 60 years out of the last 97 where investing in stocks, bonds or some combination thereof was a money losing idea.

The position this overview will take is that since there have been periods of an “investing lifetime” which have produced extremely negative returns, the idea of “long term investing” is essentially a crapshoot. Since NO ONE has perfect knowledge about the future, your long term investing success will be totally dependent on the luck of the draw…when you were born, at what point you begin your investing, and what happened in the world during the course of your investing lifetime.

THEREFORE, people who blindly accept the tired old “long term investing” canard coming from brick buildings, expensive mahogany desks and Ferrigamo shoes are likely to be disappointed with their results. Not unlike gamblers funding the opulence of Las Vegas, those brick buildings, expensive furniture and the Ferrigamo shoes on Wall Street were all paid for with savings.

Lets start out by looking at some long time periods.

If you were unlucky enough to have been fully invested in 1929, it took until 1954, 25 years later, for the market to regain it’s former levels. Long term investing over this reasonable investment lifetime of 25 years was a losing idea.

Again if you were unlucky enough to be fully invested in 1966, you had to wait 18 years, until 1984 for the market to return to it’s former levels. This of course ignores the 4.2% pre tax return necessary just to maintain your purchasing power.

There was a 57 year period from 1929-1986 where a “long term” investment in the index earned but 1.7 percent per annum. Even considering dividends and dollar cost averaging, there would have been long periods within this “greater than an investment lifetime” period where real returns would have been strongly negative.

In Japan, The Nikkei 225 index peaked around 40,000 in late 1989, and here today in 2010, 20 years later, it stands around 10,000…a loss of around 75% for holding for a period of 20 years. Combined with the increase in the cost to live because of inflation, this represents very close to a total loss for a “long term Japanese investor”.

Thousands of well meaning Chinese retirees were sold Lehman Brothers structured notes that were “guaranteed”. In 2008 those investors experienced a total loss of their retirement savings. US investors who had substantial portions of their retirement savings in Lehman Brothers stock, was confiscated. Then there’s Enron, and Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and the list goes on, and on and on. None of these were fly by night NASDAQ names. These were supposedly “blue chip” stalwart investments worthy of your lifes savings. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Many “investors” in these issues didn’t have the pleasure of calculating a return, because they lost their principal.

For decades, the “blue chip” companies were touted as safe, reliable ways for investors to save and accumulate wealth. Taking General Motors as another one of those “blue chip” investments, there is no doubt that General Motors made a lot of automobiles and a lot of money over the course of it’s existence…and those profits all went to whom? If an investor had dollar cost averaged into these shares for an entire investment lifetime, or for that matter, if regular contributions were made every month for the entire 97 year period we are considering, any way you slice it, they lost nearly all of their money. Forget about a rate of return on the money, these unfortunate investors didn’t even get a return OF their money. Over the course of the same time period, there were a lot of GM executives and Wall Streeters who got wealthy off of GM. The point here being that even if you or your “investment advisor” are lucky enough to pick the a profitable “blue chip” company for the “long term”, there is no guarantee whatsoever that as a shareholder or bond holder of that company you will be rewarded. To the contrary, there is a risk that you could save and “invest”, only to lose your hard earned savings.

Today, investing in a 10 year government bond will earn about 3.5 percent. So, if you buy those bonds today and hold them to maturity for 10 years, the only thing you are guaranteed is loss of purchasing power of at least 0.7 percent per annum for 10 years. If we enter a period of high inflation, the results will be much worse.

Citing examples of “investment lifetimes” which yielded negative real returns or a partial or even total loss on the investment is limited only by the space available to write them down.

It’s a “stock pickers” market. How many times have we all heard that? Let us demystify that claim and expose one of Wall Street’s dirty little secrets. When the market goes up, 9 out of 10 stocks go up. When the market goes down, 9 out of 10 stocks go down. Statistically speaking, if you own more than one or two stocks, it isn’t a stock pickers market, it’s 9 out of 10 stocks going up or down. If you do own only one or two stocks, lets hope they weren’t Bear Stearns and Enron.

This overview will conclude the entire Wall Street parade ignores everything outside of their realm. The idea is that Wall Street is the only place to “invest”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that they are good salesmen and they have entire TV Networks to promote their warez. Given the events of the past two years, it is questionable as to whether the term “investing” or “investment” should apply to Wall Street at all. It appears to operate more like a casino where the house always wins and the rules are changed on the fly for the benefit of the house. Interestingly, with gambling still illegal in most places, the Wall Street casino still opens for business 5 days a week thanks to a bailout from the citizens. We are all speculators now.

“There is only one side of the market and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.” – Jesse Livermore

“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.” – George W. Bush

“The nature of any human being, certainly anyone on Wall Street, is ‘the better deal you give the customer, the worse deal it is for you’. – Bernie Madoff

Editors note: An oligarchy (Greek Ὀλιγαρχία, Oligarkhía) (oligocracy) is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society.

Healthcare in America today is delivered by an exclusive club. This exclusive club consists of providers, hospitals, insurers and big pharma. Big pharma funds the FDA which acts as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Over 3,300 lobbyists have descended on Washington to to throw money at politicians for votes specifically on “healthcare reform”, thus ensuring the interests and profits of the healthcare oligarchy are upheld.

Over the past 40 years, the cost of healthcare in America has risen at an annual rate of approximately 12 percent. This is the root of the healthcare crisis in America. $100 dollars spent on healthcare 40 years ago increasing at an annual rate of 12 percent costs $9,300 dollars today. During this same 40 year period, $100 dollars in average income has increased to about $220.

The simple fact is that the cost of healthcare has risen at a greatly exaggerated rate relative to the cost of everything else. The rate of increase has been so dramatic relative to income that the costs are now an impossible burden on society.

Two thirds of all personal bankruptcies in America today are due to illness requiring major medical treatment. 78% of those people had medical insurance.

Over the past several decades, Americans have been paying more, getting less, and the enormous profits generated by Americans paying more and getting less have lined the pockets of but a few. Furthermore, there is an economic incentive to overtreat by prescribing unnecessary drugs, ordering expensive tests, and undergoing ineffective treatments. This has the effect of increasing patient costs and unnecessarily increasing risks to patients from side effects of drugs, tests and procedures that were ordered not out of necessity, but out of greed from our elitist providers. Enormously profitable cholesterol lowering drugs have been pushed upon the population by big pharma for decades under the auspices of preventative treatment. Now decades later, we find that not only are the drugs ineffective, they substantially increase the risk of death and disease from other causes. This is not medicine. It’s legalized drug pushing to maximize corporate profits at the expense of their trusting victims. A tragic error? Statistically improbable when we look at the volume of so called preventative drugs pushed on the population in the past several decades which were later pulled from the market because they killed or injured healthy people.

In my city, the CEO of the hospital drives a Rolls Royce. We recently saw an orthopedic specialist to give an opinion by reading an xray. We gave him the CD, he loaded it into his computer, and he spent a total of 10 minutes with us. The cost? $600. That’s $3,600 an hour for giving opinions. The point is that the healthcare system in America as it stands today is enriching a few at the expense of the many, and at the expense of the sick. This is not healthcare, it’s racketeering and profiteering from illness and injury. Capitalism? No. Powerful special interest cartels, yes. The only thing that has been capitalized on is the inherent willingness of sick people and their families to spend everything they have and go into debt to save themselves. The healthcare system in America today has many, if not all of the attributes of organized crime.

Furthermore, when analyzed on a price performance basis, although the costs have skyrocketed relative to everything else, the average life expectancy of Americans has gone down, and quality of life studies show that Americans are less healthy overall today and on a declining trend. The system has become impossibly unaffordable, and at the same time delivered a lower quality product as measured by longevity and quality of life. The system, collectively, as a whole, has become a wealth confiscation mechanism, siphoning off the wealth of the citizens and depositing it with a small group of elitist oligarchs.

In recent years, we have seen the development of a phenomenon called “medical tourism” where the costs of treatment in foreign countries is so much lower relative to the US, that US citizens are traveling to places such as India, staying in a five star hotel, receiving first rate treatment for major medical procedures, and then returning to the US still for far less than the cost of the medical treatment or procedure here in the US. How is this possible?

Clearly something is systemically wrong with the US healthcare system.

Today one in ten of the adult population in America have diabetes and take on the average six different expensive drugs as a result. One in 100 children have autism. Studies have shown that the highest cause of death in America is being admitted to the healthcare system. The list goes on and on but plotted as price vs performance, it can be easily argued that Americans are paying more and getting less, that the system is not competitive, and it is siphoning off the wealth of the citizens at an unsustainable rate.

Why?

To answer that question, we need to ask the question, what mechanism is in place to contain healthcare costs balanced against the demand side of people willing to pay whatever they have to pay to save, cure or treat themselves.

In a free market, with competition, one would expect healthcare costs to rise only at the baseline rate of inflation. Healthcare however is not a free market. There are 4 distinct groups, each having enormous lobbies in Washington, and there is effectively no competition because barriers to entry have been erected.

providers (represented by the AMA and ADA)

big pharma (funded and represented by the FDA, lobbied by Hill & Knowlton and tens of other powerful lobbying firms)

In other words, this is not a free market. There are 4 distinct cartels, each with powerful lobbies, and competition outside of those four groups is effectively banned.

Given a monopolistic supply curve and an inelastic demand curve, the cartel can effectively charge whatever price they want without reducing demand. They can charge up to the point where the society is unable to pay. This system has reached that point and then some.

As a result of this, any sort of “reform” can be guaranteed one thing. Each of these 4 lobbies will pay money to lawmakers to ensure their interests are upheld. Interestingly, those interests all involve maximizing their own profitability. If the providers, big pharma, insurers, and treatment centers are all maximizing their profitability, the flip side of that is that they are delivering decreased price performance…ie a higher cost and lower quality care. Their maximizing of profits ensures a declining standard of care and ever increasing costs. Interestingly, this lines up exactly with what can be documented using the historical data.

Where does that leave us?

It leaves us with a broken healthcare system. It is a broken system because the system itself after 40 years of annual double digit cost increases now collectively requires more money than is available to feed it.

It is not going to be fixed because of corruption. The lobbies will ensure that every vote on any kind of reform is paid for in advance. In come cases, the lobbies are even writing the reform and the lawmakers are just rubber stamping it without even reading it. It doesn’t matter because it’s all been purchased. The votes have been purchased and the wording in the reform has been purchased. The corporate media is running interference by trying to paint it as a left vs right political issue. It isn’t. It’s the criminal corruption of an entire industry who effectively bribes Washington to get what they want.

So what about the future of healthcare in America?

In an introspective look, I wrote that the only thing you can be sure of regarding healthcare reform is that you will pay more and get less. The lobbies will ensure that as they endeavor to maximize their profitability. One would expect to see the total size of the four groups decrease, but for prices to continue to rise. It will be a dysfunctional system with shortages of care, high prices, and a good percentage of the people going bankrupt as an unfortunate result of getting sick and entering into it.

Edit:Add Footnotes

Life Expectancy Declines for American Women
By Larry West
Life expectancy for American women is declining for the first time since the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918, according to study [pdf] published today [April 22, 2008] by the Harvard School of Public Health and reported in the Washington Post.Address

Life Expectancy Worsening or Stagnating for Large Segment of the U.S. Population
Monday, April 21, 2008
Boston, MA — Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Washington found that 4% of the male population and 19% of the female population experienced either decline or stagnation in mortality beginning in the 1980s.Address

Anemia drug doubles stroke risk, study finds
Marilynn Marchione, Associated Press
Saturday, October 31, 2009
A new study raises fresh safety concerns about widely used anemia medicines, finding that the drug Aranesp nearly doubled the risk of stroke in people with diabetes and chronic kidney problems who are not yet sick enough to need dialysis.Address

Cholesterol-lowering drugs increase risk of diabetes, study finds
17 February 2010
By Lyndsay Moss
USING drugs to lower cholesterol increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, research in Scotland suggests. An analysis of 13 studies involving the drugs, known as statins, found that they increased the chances of someone developing diabetes by 9 per cent.Address

Child cases of diabetes set to double, says study
Number of under-fives with type 1 diabetes will be twice figure it was four years ago by 2020
Alexandra Topping
UK Guardian
Thursday 28 May 2009
The number of cases of insulin-dependent diabetes among children under five is expected to double in the next 11 years, according to experts. If present trends continue, by 2020 the number of children with type 1 diabetes will be twice the number it was four years ago.Address

Dozens of Pfizer and Merck Research Studies Faked
In the largest research fraud in medical history, Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s speakers’ bureau, is pleading guilty to faking dozens of research studies published in medical journals.Address

Senate Turns Down Drug Reimportation
Mark Crane
December 15, 2009 — The US Senate today turned down a bipartisan amendment to allow the purchase and importation of prescription drugs from other countries.Address

Widely-used diabetes drugs can cause heart disease and death, warn experts
A diabetes drug used by tens of thousands of Britons increases the risk of heart disease and death, according to a new report.Address

Medical problems were behind two-thirds of personal bankruptcies in 2007. And that was before the economic crisis.
By Andrew Leonard
Friday, Jun 5, 2009
Salon
Americans filed for bankruptcy at a rate of 6,020 per day in May, reports Credit Slip’s Bob Lawless. That’s the first time the 6,000-per-day mark has been broken since the passing of the 2005 bankruptcy law, which made it hard for Americans to seek relief from their debts. In related bankruptcy news, the results of a study to be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine show that “medical problems contributed to nearly two-thirds (62.1 percent) of all bankruptcies in 2007.” More strikingly — “between 2001 and 2007, the proportion of all bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6 percent.” (Found via Mark Thoma. The authors of the study cite their findings as yet more evidence that the healthcare system in the United States is broken.Address

78 Percent Of Bankruptcy Filers Burdened By Healthcare Expenses Had Health Insurance
In an update to their landmark 2001 study on medical bankruptcy, researchers at Harvard University have concluded that medical debt contributed to 62 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies in 2007 — 78 percent of bankruptcy filers burdened by healthcare expenses had health insurance but “still were overwhelmed by their medical debt“:Address

Six Lobbyists Per Lawmaker Work on Health Overhaul
By Jonathan D. Salant and Lizzie O’Leary
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — If there is any doubt that President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul U.S. health care is the hottest topic in Congress, just ask the 3,300 lobbyists who have lined up to work on the issue. That’s six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy. These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.Address

Modern Health Care System is the Leading Cause of Death
Doctors are in fact the LEADING cause of death in this country. Not heart disease, not cancer–doctors. In all fairness, doctors themselves are not to blame for all of this. The entire modern health care system, however, is to blame for allowing, even promoting, so many unnecessary procedures, drugs and mishaps.Address

How Big Pharma is Infiltrating Your Child’s School
by Steve Gaylord
F ebruary 25, 2010
This subject is definitely alarming…
School Based Health Centers: How Big Pharma Is Infiltrating Your Child’s SchoolAddress

Despite outcry, Anthem Blue Cross to go ahead with big rate hike
By Michael B. Farrell
San Francisco – Anthem Blue Cross, the health insurer that plans to boost rates by as much as 39 percent in California this year, has become a lightning rod in the national debate over healthcare reformAddressStatins: The side effects ‘are worse than feared’
By Jenny Hope
Last updated at 10:02 AM on 21st May 2010
The side effects of statins can be far worse than previously thought, a study suggests. For the first time, the level of harm posed by the cholesterol-lowering drugs has been quantified by researchers. They found some users are much more likely to suffer liver dysfunction, acute kidney failure, cataracts and muscle damage known as myopathy. For some patients, the risk is eight times higher than among those not taking statins. Overall, the risk of myopathy – which may be irreversible – is six times higher for men on statins and three times higher for women.Address

Why are 300 million individuals being conveniently divided into two divisive black and white categories that don’t fit the majority of people to begin with?

“Left” vs “Right”, “Liberal” versus “Conservative”. This simple minded paradigm is involuntarily hoisted on Americans by the corporate media while at the same time both parties have sold out the population to the multinational corporations, banks and special interests who run Washington D.C. To think that every American can be divided into one of two simple categories represents a mass delusion concocted and promoted by the media solely for the purpose of distraction and avoidance of discussing real issues that affect all Americans while the country is looted and power is consolidated.

The fact is that most people may simultaneously hold so called “left” or “right” views depending on any one particular issue. Furthermore, many of the most important and pressing issues in America today are neither “left”, or “right” issues but common issues for every citizen in America and yet Americans are coerced into this stupid binary dance every day, detached from the reality that they are all are being used to divide and conquer the nation. Americans like well trained seals myopically beat their liberal/conservative drum of futile self -righteous indignation, while the country has been stolen out from under the people. It’s pathetic. You are being used.

Now is the part where you, the reader, are supposed to start getting it….

The vast majority of Americans are centrists in the sense that they hold views that are not extreme. Division among left and right stems from a period when the Republican party favored small limited government and the Democrats favored big government. Now however, both parties represent the latter wrapped in a top down globalist agenda. The President de jour is a political puppet…a bus driver…a mascott…doing what he’s told by the international money interests.

Today there is effectively one party in America and they are all corporatists. Politicians are loyal only to the money which put them there and keeps them there. The rhetoric may still differ to a tone deaf and disinformed population, but the actions of both parties are virtually identical. The one thing they do have in common is that neither party represents the will of the people. Instead, they represent the will of the corporations and special interests who bought and paid for their votes on all important issues in advance.

There are many important issues that never even make it into public discourse. Issues that do not fit left or right, like a government that has now been in the longest war in US history in the black hole of Afghanistan. Like a Government that is unable to end a war of choice in Iraq where there they have built a US “Embassy” so large it can be seen from outer space. This at the same time as 10 percent of the population have been reduced to subsisting on food stamps, the real unemployment rate is over 20 percent, there are tent cities across America, and people are living in their cars. According to a recent poll, only 21 percent of the American people believe the government has the authority to govern. Is the collapse of US industry and manufacturing a left or right issue? The US doesn’t make anything any more, the industry and the housing are owned by the banking system and the government, and in the smokescreen their media will all bounce back and forth between blaming the “left” or the “right” for all of this.

Go Ahead, Argue Away, Serfs

Americans are sitting on the couch with their chips and beer while Washington and the Pentagon have bankrupted the treasury and sent our sons and daughters into the meat grinders Iraq and Afghanistan for WMD’s and connections to 9/11 that did not exist. Even after overwhelming evidence that the pro war propaganda was manufactured, the serfs keep buying into the brain dead notion that somehow, these wars are for the freedom of America.

The fact is that your childrens blood is being used to grease a corrupt, out of control, now bankrupt empire in wars of conquest. Your money, financial security and your future has been devoured by Wall St. and the Federal Reserve, with collusion from the corrupt cretins who claim to be the people’s representatives. Your standard of living is rapidly eroding into a kings and serfs society as the middle class is becoming extinct. The people? The people don’t have much to say about it because they are apparently too busy arguing among themselves. How convenient for the select few who own Washington and the media and have consolidated all the wealth.

The majority of American people want the government to take care of the roads, maintain the state parks, provide good schools, etc. and otherwise stay out of the way so they can live their lives and pursue happiness. Neither party represents that today. Both parties represent big government, big spending, big favors for the money interests and disregard for the people they are ostensibly representing. “Left vs right” is merely a convenient tool for the elite to keep people arguing among themselves and to avoid discussing the real issues like a corporatist takeover of the political body. If there was any truth in advertising, the two political divisions would be “the people” (99.9 percent of the population) and “the elite” (0.1 percent of the population).

Any U.S. politician today who doesn’t kowtow to the money interests, bankers, and globalists is promptly assassinated by their corporate media, wholly owned and controlled by those interests.

Democrats? Republicans? Wake up. This is a one party system in drag. The political body all the way up to and including the President dance like puppets for the Straussian elitist, globalist, corporate agenda. As a result America is rapidly turning into a kings and serfs society where the one thing the people DO have in common is no voice.

No one is paying any attention to what is really going on, because it’s all supposed to come down to left vs right in a grand smokescreen which obscures the real issues. The fact is that we have had left and right in power for the past decade and the only thing they have in common is wanton disregard for the will and interests of the people. Instead the political body is consumed and controlled by the 0.1 percent who control the money. The corporate media ensures that people are arguing among themselves while the theft of the people’s wealth happens right out in the open.

“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” – Senator Dick Durbin 2009

The people are supposed to be arguing among themselves about left vs right and looking in caves for Osama Bin Hiding, while the oligarchs have their way and loot your country. There is no middle class in America today. The wealth has been transferred from the people to the oligarchs, in a sophisticated shell game where the money disappeared from the people’s savings, and that money was re created on behalf of the people and given out to guess who?

Not you.

So the left vs right issue in America is a smokescreen for a herd of voiceless dumbbells who are told what they are supposed to believe by six people who control 96 percent of the media that americans consume. The same people who go to davos to consort with the people who are charging you 30 percent interest on your credit card and giving you 1 percent on your savings. The same people who have lobbied your representative to sell poison as food. How nitwitted does anyone need to be to go along with that? If that sounds extreme then what about this, and this.

Tea Party? A Tea Party for Forrest Gump maybe. Your Tea Party will be sponsored by guess who? The same people who control all the other politicians votes on everything.

In the category of things I am sad to say…

I’m sad to say that the people have been had. Go ahead and argue about (some dumb thing) while your future and your childrens future has already been confiscated by the remaining big money interests who control everything. There is actually a dictionary term for this and it isn’t conspiracy theory, it’s absolute corruption. There is no way to get rid of it. It has to fail on it’s own. It is in the process of doing so now.

Already today according to recent polls, only 8 percent of Americans believe they have any representation at all, and yet at the same time find themselves powerless affect change. The last candidate was promoted with a clever platform of change. The next puppet candidate put forth by the people who control all the money and power is going to need a new slogan. I would suggest…

ECONned (Kindle Edition)
“The result has been a massive transfer of wealth, with its centerpiece the greatest theft from the public purse in history. This campaign has been far too consistent and calculated to brand it with the traditional label, “spin”. This manipulation of public perception can only be called propaganda. Only when we, the public, are able to call the underlying realities by their proper names—extortion, capture, looting, propaganda—can we begin to root them out.” – Yves Smith, ECONnedAddress

Rasmussen: Mere 4% Support Establishment Political Class
Rasmussen Reports
April 14, 2010
Sixty-five percent (65%) of voters nationwide now hold populist, or Mainstream, views of government. That’s up from 62% last September and 55% last March. Mainstream Americans tend to trust the wisdom of the crowd more than their political leaders and are skeptical of both big government and big business (see crosstabs). While Republicans and unaffiliated voters are more likely to hold Mainstream views than Democrats, a majority of those in the president’s party (51%) hold such views. Only four percent (4%) now support the Political Class. These voters tend to trust political leaders more than the public at large and are far less skeptical about government.Address

Radical Concentration of Wealth is Destroying Both Capitalism and Democracy
Sunday, April 11, 2010
George Washington’s Blog
Note: If you wish, feel free to substitute the word “republic” for “democracy”.Address

Bilderberg Agenda Revealed: Globalists In Crisis, Supportive Of Attack On Iran
Global government, carbon tax agenda failing, but majority of elitists in favor of air strikes on IranAddress

Bilderberg Meetings
The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations. Approximately 130 participants will attend of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education, and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.Address

Bilderberg See People With Income As “A Threat” To Their AgendaAddress

Secretive Bilderberg Club ready for protests
June 3, 2010
Graham Keeley, Barcelona
Splash! Could that be the sound of Lord Mandelson hitting one of the Dolce hotel’s four pools? Or Robert Zoellick of the World Bank? Paul Volcker of the US Economic Recovery Advisory Board? Or merely the euro taking another dive? That is the thing about the Bilderberg group’s top secret meetings: you never know quite what is going on behind the police checkpoints. Across the world, secretaries to the rich and the powerful have blocked out the next three days in their bosses’ calendars for their annual gathering, this time at the Dolce in Sitges, one of Spain’s most exclusive resorts.Address

US attendees at ‘world government’ meeting may be breaking law: activists

The Federal Reserve Has Been Abusing Derivatives Since 1999
by Eric deCarbonnel
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Federal Reserve reports that Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee Meeting on June 24-25, 2003.Address